Adult female Brown Booby

Sightings
This adult female Brown Booby was perhaps one of thirty sightings of this species on our trip from the Blue Waters Inn across to the offshore island of Little Tobago. It was standing on a rocky coast close to a nest.

Species
Brown Booby Sula leucogaster breeds on islands and coasts in the pan tropical areas of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They frequent the breeding grounds of seabirds on islands in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean and nest in large colonies. There are four subspecies of which S. l. leucogaster breeds on Caribbean islands.

Status and Distribution
The species is of least concern with a decreasing population in an enormous world range. It is a common resident in coastal waters of north east Tobago and regularly seen along the Tobago coastline and north east Trinidad.

References
BirdLife; Wikipedia; World Bird Names; Kenefick, M., Restall, R., and Hayes, F. (2015) Birds of Trinidad and Tobago, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 46

Photograph
The photograph was taken from a moving boat at 1/1600th of a second at f5.6 and ISO 1600.